Field of the Invention
The invention relates to near-field wireless communication systems including a plurality of communication terminals to be interconnected for mutual communications through near-field wireless communication, and communication terminals and communication methods for use with the systems.
Description of the Related Art
In some of the near-field wireless communication systems disclosed so far, plural communication terminals are interconnected through near-field wireless communication, such as Bluetooth (registered trademark) communication, to allow mutual communications therebetween. JP 2008-141744 A discloses an example of such systems.
In the case where the communication terminals are disconnected from each other, these near-field wireless communication systems are operable to interconnect them again. At the time of instantaneously interrupted interconnection, for example, one of interconnected communication terminals will soon be automatically connected again to the other communication terminal most recently connected thereto before the inter-terminal connection was disrupted.
For the sake of automatic reconnection between the disconnected communication terminals, the communication terminals contain connection-related data of their communication destinations. At the time of startup, for example, the communication terminal automatically recognizes the communication terminal most recently connected thereto before the inter-terminal connection is disrupted based on the data, and then reconnects to the recognized communication terminal.
This process of reconnection, though conveniently useful at the time of restarting the instantaneously disconnected communication terminal, may be disadvantageous in that the communication terminal to be reconnected is confined to the most recently connected communication terminal before the inter-terminal connection is disrupted.
However, it is not necessarily the most recently connected communication terminal that should be reconnected when the inter-terminal connection is lost. A choice to intentionally change the communication terminal to be reconnected entails such an additional burden as manual do-over after the inter-terminal connection is restored again.
The invention provides a near-field wireless communication system with an improved workability in reconnecting communication terminals, a communication terminal, and a communication method.